{"id":4960,"date":"2020-11-23T10:31:48","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T15:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=4960"},"modified":"2020-11-23T11:40:08","modified_gmt":"2020-11-23T16:40:08","slug":"supreme-court-accepts-first-indian-law-case-in-new-conservative-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2020\/11\/23\/supreme-court-accepts-first-indian-law-case-in-new-conservative-era\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court accepts first Indian law case in new conservative era"},"content":{"rendered":"\"supremecourt\"\r\n
Demonstrators rally in support of the Affordable Care Act at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on November 10, 2020. Photo by Indianz.Com (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n
Supreme Court accepts first Indian law case in new conservative era<\/div>\r\n
Monday, November 23, 2020<\/div>\r\n
By Acee Agoyo<\/div>\r\n
Indianz.Com<\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nFor the second time in as many years, the U.S. Supreme Court<\/a> will be taking up a case that impacts the treaty rights of the Crow Tribe<\/a>.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nIn an order on Friday, the justices agreed to hear United States v. Cooley<\/em><\/a>. The case is the first Indian law dispute on the docket for the high court’s current term, which began in October<\/a> amid a major ideological battle that brought another conservative member to the bench<\/a>.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nBut Cooley<\/em> won’t be the first time most of the justices have been called to examine the 1868 Treaty with the Crows<\/a>. Two years ago, the court determined that the tribe’s off-reservation hunting rights<\/a> have never been abrogated.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nMindful of the outcome in Herrera v. Wyoming<\/em><\/a>, which was decided in May 2019, the tribe is once again seeking for victory. A friend of the court brief reminds the justices that just a few short months ago, they forced the United States government to honor its trust and treaty responsibilities<\/a>.\r\n

<\/P>\r\n\u201cThis court should ‘hold the government to its word,’\u201d attorneys for the tribe told the justices<\/a>, quoting from the historic ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma<\/em><\/a>, one of the most consequential Indian law cases in recent history.\r\n

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\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\"17-30022\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t17-30022 USA v. Joshua Cooley\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
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The United States appeals the district court’s order suppressing evidence seized as a result of a vehicle stop by a tribal officer.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

\n\t\t\"YouTube\"\t\tYouTube\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
9th Circuit Court of Appeals: USA v. Joshua Cooley, No. 17-30022 – May 14, 2018<\/a>\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nUnlike the situation McGirt<\/em>, however, in which the Trump administration repeatedly disavowed its legal and moral obligations<\/a>, the Crow Tribe has the backing of the executive branch. In fact, it was the Department of Justice<\/a> that asked the Supreme Court to hear the new case, calling it a threat to the rights of Indian nations across the country.\r\n

<\/P>\r\n\u201cRequiring tribes to give up even more<\/em> of their limited sovereignty merely to preserve law and order within reservation boundaries is not an adequate solution,\u201d government attorneys wrote in their petition<\/a> to the high court.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nThe dispute in Cooley<\/em> arises from a seemingly routine traffic stop that occurred on the Crow Reservation in Montana<\/a> more than four years ago. According to the government’s brief, tribal police officer James Saylor encountered a vehicle whose driver exhibited increasingly erratic behavior.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nSaylor eventually discovered methamphetamine and a firearm in the car (along with a small child) and the driver was indicted in federal court on drug trafficking charges. But the case was thrown out because Joshua James Cooley<\/a> was able to have the evidence suppressed on the grounds that tribal law enforcement lack criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians.\r\n

<\/P>\r\n\u201cSaylor never asked Cooley whether he was an Indian or otherwise ascertained that he was not. Instead, he reached a conclusion about Cooley\u2019s status as a non-Indian based on physical appearance alone,\u201d the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals<\/a> wrote in a unanimous decision from March 2019. \u201cOfficers cannot presume for jurisdictional purposes that a person is a non-Indian \u2014 or an Indian \u2014 by making assumptions based on that person\u2019s physical appearance.\u201d\r\n

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\r\n<\/img>\r\n
A welcome sign on the Crow Reservation in Montana. Photo: Jimmy Emerson<\/a>\r\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\nAccording to Cooley’s defense team, the dispute should end there, on the jurisdiction issue. In a brief to the Supreme Court, they argued that tribal treaty rights have never been part of the discussion until now.\r\n

<\/P>\r\n\u201cThe government does not press the treaty right issue\u201d being raised by the tribe, Cooley’s attorneys wrote<\/a>, adding: \u201cThat issue was not raised, let alone considered, in either of the lower courts.\u201d\r\n

<\/P>\r\nWith their order on Friday<\/a>, the justices did not explain why they agreed to hear Cooley<\/em>. They could have been swayed by the federal government’s presentation or by the tribal interest briefs, which included one signed by the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center<\/a> and five Indian nations, all of whom have been exercising jurisdiction over non-Indians in certain domestic violence matters.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\u201cForcing tribal law enforcement to wait to intervene until domestic violence becomes ‘obvious’ or ‘apparent’ will cost lives,\u201d reads the brief, which was joined by the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and the Quinault Nation.\r\n

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